Bradbury, Ray (Douglas)

Bradbury, Ray [Douglas] (1920–), born in Illinois, long resident in Los Angeles, began to publish in pulp magazines, but after 1945 became known for serious stories. These include works of both fantasy and science fiction, now macabre, now humorous, collected in volumes including Dark Carnival (1947); The Martian Chronicles (1950), titled The Silver Locusts in England), about Mars a century hence; The Illustrated Man (1951); The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953), satirical sketches; October Country (1955); A Meditation for Melancholy (1959); R Is for Rocket, S Is for Space (1962); The Machineries of Joy (1964); Twice Twenty‐Two (1966); Any Friend of Nicholas Nickleby's Is a Friend of Mine (1968); and I Sing the Body Electric (1969). His novels include Fahrenheit 451 (1953), presenting a future totalitarian state in which super‐television presents all that people are to think or know, and the ownership of books is cause for the state to burn both volumes and owners; Dandelion Wine (1957) and Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962), about boyhood experiences in the Midwest; Death Is a Lonely Business (1985), a semi‐autobiographical tale of crime; A Graveyard for Lunatics (1990), science fiction set in 1954 Hollywood; and Green Shadow, White Whale (1992), an affectionate homage to Ireland and director John Huston. He has written many plays, including The Meadow (1947), The Anthem Sprinters (1962), The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (1965), The Halloween Tree (1968), Pillar of Fire (1975); and film scripts, including Moby Dick (1954). His poems appear in When Elephants Last in the Dooryard Bloomed (1973), Where Robot Men and Robot Women Run Round in Robot Towns (1977), and Complete Poems (1982). The Toynbee Convector (1988) is the latest of many collections of short stories.